Just got a copy of this new release written by Charlie Meck and Paul Weamer. Great reference book with mayfly, caddis, stonefly, etc hatches in chronological order, short information on each as to emergence, some recommended patterns, and a couple premier streams for a particular hatch. Also some great photographs of each insect.I'm gonna keep mine in the truck so it's always close. I was starting to make a chart for Penns as a tying guide to make sure I had each hatch. This book takes most of the work out of the effort.

rscheckler wrote:If you have the chance, can you compare the hatches in the book to your personal notes to see how accurate they are? I have seen other hatch books but they never seem to be accurate.

The book is a "super set" for the whole state. My personal notes on Penns are limited since I have only fly fished a few years. I was working with Bruce Fisher of Penns Creek Angler on my own Penns list. Bruce lives on Penns and has fished it for many years. He has a great collection of pictures and has flies tied for his shop with patterns "tuned" for Penns.

Bruce has spent many hours on unfishable days in his shop showing me flies, rod making, and talking local fishing spots and techniques. He has a wealth of knowledge on Penns and the other local mountain streams.

BTW I just noticed he has a Penns hatch chart on his WEB site now. My plan was not only to create the chart but tie up a set of patterns for each hatch on the chart.

I picked one up as an impulse buy last week. It turned out to be a decent purchase. It handles the basics in a very practical manner. It's specific to PA hatches and I do like the way it aligns the hatches to blooming vegetation rather than simply trying to pick a date which can vary significantly from year to year depending on the weather patterns.

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I'm the first to say that I'm just really putting all the various aspects of this sport together, but I bought this book on the recommendations of an aquaintence.

I've spent quite sometime beside the stream, and saw plenty of flies, but I've never taken the time to actually identify them other than to think, "Oh, small and tan.. I've got something like that!"

However, when I bought hte book and looked through it, I started to put things together. I now realize that where I often fish on the Monocacy for an hour afterwork has lots of black caddis, I recognize the fly, and I can easily put it to a name and then to a pattern. Just the other day, despite people saying, "BWOs are hatching," I didn't know much til I was putting my waders on and saw them landing on my car.

I think I had an epiphany at that moment. I still may not know what I'm doing, but I know a little less than the day before.

I'm sure there's better field guides, but this is small enough to stuff in a pocket and informational enough for me to feel that I'm better equipped than ever before.

I read it the other day while my car was being fixed. I can see it being a good field guide and reference for someone who's trying to get it all down. Or some one like me who is really less interested in Latin and more interested in "a bug of this color in this shape and this size..." Either way its small and not expensive and could be a handy thing to have in your glove box.

I just picked this up tonight and later found this thread. This is apparently a popular book at least in the fly shop I frequent. I was looking through this and was impressed by the work, I've needed a book like this to get better at identifying insects. I know some basics but I really want to expand my knowledge and I love the quick reference type of format. Like tom, I don't care much about the Latin, but care more about size, color, what to look for when, etc.